Tupolev Tu-144

The Tu-144 left the runway of the Zhukovsky airfield on the last day of 1968 and became the first passenger aircraft to break the sound barrier, and then Mach 2. The tailless design with an ogival wing received unique retractable canards, extended at take-off and landing for low-speed control. From 1977 the airliner carried passengers on the Moscow to Alma-Ata route, covering three thousand kilometres in under two hours. Commercial service proved short: the economics of supersonic flight and two crashes closed the programme, but the aircraft served another twenty years as flying laboratories, including a joint programme with NASA. The displayed Tu-144D is one of the few surviving machines; the cabin and the flight deck with the flight engineer station are open to visitors. An NK-144 engine is exhibited under the fuselage.